Shelby County printmaker wins top prize at Bluff Park Art Show (video and photo gallery)

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HOOVER, Alabama - A Shelby County printmaker claimed the top prize at the Bluff Park Art Show in Hoover today.

Debra Riffe, a graphic designer for the city of Birmingham’s Office of Public Information, won the $3,500 purchase award with a black and white linoleum block relief print called “The Birds of Gideon Roam the Sky.”

Riffe was among a dozen winners of cash awards at the show, which organizers said drew a steady crowd throughout the day.

“We have had a huge amount of traffic today,” said Jeff Pierson, the show chairman. “We had to bring in two extra (shuttle) buses (for a total of nine). We were having too many lines, too many waiting.”

Debra Riffe of Shelby County won the top prize at the 2012 Bluff Park Art Show with this black and white linoleum block relief print called “The Birds of Gideon Roam the Sky.” (The Birmingham News/Jon Anderson)

The total estimated crowd was at least 12,500 people, Pierson said.

Rain clouds threatened early in the day, making Pierson a little bit uneasy, but he said many artists assured him it would not rain for the 49th annual show. “We have never been rained out, and today was not going to be the day,” Pierson said.

More than 130 artists from across the country displayed and sold their wares at today’s show, with a variety of mediums, including clay, fiber, glass, graphite, jewelry, mixed media 2D and 3D, painting, photography, print-making, sculpture and woodworking. About 70 of the artists were from outside Alabama, and about 40 of them were first-timers at the Bluff Park show, Pierson said.

“All the new ones were just ecstatic to be here and talking about how beautiful the setting is,” he said.

The Bluff Park Art Show is a juried show, which means the artists are screened and selected to participate. “What you see here is 100 percent original work,” Pierson said. “The artist has conceived it, created it, and you can have it.”

Elizabeth Meredith, 45, who lives just south of Hoover in unincorporated Jefferson County, said she has been coming to the show for about 40 years. Her mother started bringing her when she was very young, and she loves coming back every year, she said.

“It’s an absolute necessity to do this unless I’m out of town,” Meredith said.

She likes to grab some barbecue and find a spot on the rocks to sit and soak in the atmosphere, she said. And the original artwork fits her personality, she said.

“I prefer to buy something that’s been handmade, especially if I get to meet the artist,” she said. “I always have artist-made jewelry on … It means a lot to have these types of things rather than mass-manufactured, made from China.”

Paul and Cheryl Barnett came with their niece, Lauren Green, from Sylacauga. They had never been to the Bluff Park Art Show before today but knew one of the artists coming this year. “We’re enjoying it. It’s great,” Cheryl Barnett said. “It’s got all kinds of mediums, just fun to be out on a pretty day.”

Susan Dennis Gordon, director of the Shelby County Arts Council, which has a gallery in Columbiana, said she has been coming to the Bluff Park Art Show as a patron since she moved to the Birmingham area about seven years ago. This was her second year as an exhibitor, displaying her contemporary abstract art.

“It’s always been one of my favorite shows,” Gordon said. “The artwork, to me, is really, really good. The jurors are very picky.”

Riffe, who won the top purchase award, creates Southern, African-American linoleum block relief prints. She got her start at the Howard University College of Fine Arts and has always been a graphic designer, but she got back into the fine arts about six years ago.

“When I leave my job at city hall, this is what I do until midnight,” she said.

This is her sixth year at the Bluff Park Art Show, and she is preparing for a traveling exhibit of 30 prints commemorating the leaders, activists and foot soldiers of the civil rights leaders in Birmingham in 1963.

Other awards given out at this year’s Bluff Park Art Show and their recipients were:

This painting by James Knowles of Trussville, titled “Dream of the Cats,” won the Popular Vote Award at the 2012 Bluff Park Art Show In Hoover, Ala., on Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012. (The Birmingham News/Jon Anderson)